When I first saw the tall buildings in downtown Tuzla, I expected most of them to be offices. Instead, nearly all the tall buildings turned out to be apartment buildings.Many of the people here are concentrated in clusters of Communist-era apartment towers. Families hang laundry from the balconies. Younger residents spend a lot of time outside walking the streets.

Tuzla is located in northeast Bosnia. Its name derives from the word "Tuz," a Turkish word for "salt." The city has been known for centuries as a center for salt mining, and is home to one of the few inland salt lakes in Europe. In 1991, the most recent census taken in the country, Tuzla had about 81,000 residents. During the war, a flood of refugees caused the population to swell to an estimated 178,000. The current population appears to be around 130,000 in and around the city.The city is fairly evenly divided between Muslims, Catholics and Orthodox Christians, which results in church steeples and minarets sharing the skyline and people of various faiths sharing the streets. However, the overall look of the city is very secular. A few Muslim women cover their heads here, but the vast, vast majority dress in fashionable Euro style.

One of the doctors I interviewed told me that most Muslims here are like a lot of the Christians in America, they celebrate the holidays, they identify with the culture, but are not very strict about prayers, visiting mosques or even following rules restricting alcohol or pork. The city is not carved into segregated enclaves. And the people are generally not bothered by non-believers. Overall, they are Muslims with a little "m," much like Catholics with a little "c." Here, cafes serve beer, wine, juice and coffee -- whatever the customer wants. I could see very little evidence of religious "blue laws" affecting how businesses operated. And I saw several tables where some in the group were drinking alcohol while others were not. In fact, Tuzla was known before the war as a city that had a long history of intermarriage between the faiths; so much so that its virtually impossible to guess the religion of a person passing by simply by their appearance. Later, during the war, the mayor of this city would call upon those multicultural roots to rally a beseiged people. As the shelling killed Muslims and Christians without distinction, he declared "We are Tuzlans!"